Parents of Sons

Parents Forum
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<p>Northeastmom, it seems to me like you/he are likely OK on questions 1 and 2. So, it is really question 3. The two schools that my son applied to seem politically correct to a farethewell. This appears extends to sexuality, where there is a lot of experimentation. That may be easy for some kids and not for others. But, that may not be true for the school your son is looking at. I’d guess that there will be a lot less male bonding than at a school that is 50/50, in part because women will be coming by at all hours asking for “help.” That is consistent with comments I’ve read from students and alumnae. But, he might really enjoy being pursued. Just get him a serious lock for his door.</p>

<p>NEMom, I’ve only investigated the two schools and it seems like being instantly paired off is less likely than being asked for “help” lots of evenings. Hook-ups more likely than dating. I have no idea if this is true at the school you are discussing, but it seems to be the case with the two schools my son applied to.</p>

<p>Thanks, mathmom for the correction. And Northeastmom, I agree that I’d be more concerned about a daughter. Then again, I attended Princeton when it had just started admitting women, so for most of my time there, it was worse than 70/30. Lots of male bonding and I have close friends from those years. It was a bit awkward meeting and dealing with women, but I had a girlfriend in each of my last two years there.</p>

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<p>Northstarmom, My hetero daughter crossed out a school last year exactly for that reason (lack of romantic possibilities in such a lopsided environment). My son, however, grew up in a household of women. He would be fine.</p>

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You think so? Wow. And I always thought it had something to do with the flunked courses and the GPA. So you think if there had been more guys around, he would have been happy to take on $40K of extra debt to stay a 5th year to make up for all those incompletes?</p>

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<p>S2 lives in the only all male dorm on his campus. It is the Land of the He-Man. It’s been a male bastion since 1962 when it was built. No women have ever lived there…until now</p>

<p>At the end of this semester, it will close for renovations and re-open as a co-ed dorm in the fall. </p>

<p>There was a dorm shortage this year. Since there are many more females, the all male dorm had to go.
The all male dorm was not his first choice but he has ended up loving it. It just won’t be the same. They’re getting t-shirts that say “Last Men of ( dorm name)”</p>

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<p>My oldest son would consider it. My youngest, well, he would be in heaven … and he’s just 12!</p>

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<p>I would be sufficiently concerned to investigate further, and I agree with Singersmom07’s comment:</p>

<p>*The only thing I would look at it how your S does with the “softer” class skills. Don’t know how it plays out at the college level, but in HS whenever the class was predominantly female S had problems because of the way the class was taught. More verbal/written more projects. Even in the “hard science” classes. Have not heard that it carried over, but would probably want to sit in on some classes to see. *</p>

<p>In our local public school, girls outnumber boys in top academic honors and in leadership positions. I attribute this at least in part to the “feminization” of our K-12 public school system, a trend that also seems to affect higher education. This trend leads to classroom practices that tend to favor girls, such as assignments to write about math instead of actually doing math or touchy feely group discussions that seem to be the mainstay of many classes, e.g., a science class breakout session on "how you feel about global warming”.</p>

<p>Another problem might be the social scene, and author Richard Whitmire has some comments about what happens when the gender imbalance passes 60% female:</p>

<p>*That’s the gender imbalance campus admissions officers fear most, the threshold where you can feel a palpable difference on campus. What this means to the campus social scene is guaranteed to make parents of college-bound girls cringe a bit.</p>

<p>Moving past 60% at some point triggers what biologists refer to as the operational sex ratio, which in the animal kingdom refers to the changes in mating habits that occur when one sex outnumbers the other. Humans are not immune, including college campuses.*</p>

<p>Whitmire goes on to describe a social scene where the men have the “upper hand” and many women lower their standards “to win the competition to get a guy’s attention”.</p>

<p>And it doesn’t just affect the women:</p>

<p>At James Madison and other colleges I visited with severe gender imbalances, the men appeared to pay an eventual price by failing to develop relationship skills and losing the trust of the women.</p>

<p>[Why</a> Boys Fail Blog Archive How college gender imbalances impact the social scene…](<a href=“http://www.whyboysfail.com/2008/07/21/how-college-gender-imbalances-impact-the-social-scene/]Why”>whyboysfail.com - This website is for sale! - whyboysfail Resources and Information.)</p>

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<p>PayFor – Interesting stuff.</p>

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<p>Payfor, thank you for the link and your post. I am beginning to have more fears and an uncomfortable feeling about sending my son there than I did when I first started this thread! I need to think this through in a much more serious and thorough manner.</p>

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<p>I think PayFor does women and women’s education an injustice. The implication above is that females don’t really learn math and the hard sciences—they just talk about them. I would be interested in hearing feedback from posters like je<em>ne</em>sai_quoi. I doubt that she feels that her daughter is in a softball educational environment like the one PayFor describes.</p>

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<p>^^^ I don’t read it that way Mary. I see it as a comment that men and women learn differently. They will get to the same point in understanding but through different paths. </p>

<p>We see this in High Schools who are trying out women only science/math class. It seems men and women may learn in different ways and respond to different teaching techniques. The rigor can be the same but the teaching style and learning activities are very different. It is fascinating research. If we want more women in high level science and math we may have to change how we teach those subjects in High school and college and no this does not mean lowering any standards.</p>

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<p>S1 would not have had a problem with a 70/30 female/male ratio in college, even a small one, as his “group” in HS tended to be heavily female. But he was looking for an engineering program and subsequently chose a specialized engineering university that was 18/82 female/male. We warned him that this might be a difficult adjustment for him and he dismissed it.</p>

<p>Two years into it, many of his friends are still female and he rents a house with two female classmates. The lopsided ratio has not been an issue for him, I think because he identifies less with traditional labels and prefers to think of himself as genderqueer (in it’s broadest sense). I would imagine that this is not typical, though.</p>

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<p>PayFor - interesting link</p>

<p>We have the opposite scenario though and I didn’t see any info regarding the effects of the opposite ratio on the boys - a college that has 70% (or more) male to female ratio. I suppose that historicaly this is not at all unusual. Especially not for a tech school.
NEMom, what are your concerns? (not trying to diminish them, just not sure which things you are worried about) What is your S interested in studying?</p>

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<h1>theorymom, he is interested in humanities at the moment: ie: English/history. He is thinking about teaching high school, but he is 17 and I know that this idea can change by next week. I do know that he is not going into engineering, physics, biology etc. I would not completely discount chemistry, though this would be unlikely. I could see a psych major, poly sci major, as being possible. One never knows.</h1>

<p>My concerns, are really the social dynamic set up when the ratio of females to males are so uneven. I frankly worry about him coupling off too soon, and this getting in the way of developing himself. I know that this can happen at any school, but I just think that it is more likely to occur at a 70/30 school.</p>

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<p>what is the ratio at his high school? Has he shown a real need to be part of a “couple” there?</p>

<p>My son has not demonstrated that need. However, as one of the least nerdy and better looking boys at the tech school he has chosen, it may be more of a problem for him there than at his high school so who knows LOL</p>

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<p>I do not know the ratio, but there are more girls than boys in his hs. He has not had the need to couple off, but I think this is more likely to happen at college. In hs he goes to school, participates in sports (all male), or participates in clubs that are mostly made up of males and then he comes home. His friends outside of school are male. He is not socializing/living in a dorm, or eating with female peers.</p>

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<p>Thanks, drizzit. That makes more sense, and I agree (especially as an alum of an all-girls’ high school). Words like “touchy feely” and “write about math instead of actually doing math” struck me as derogatory, suggesting that the rigor was not the same.</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t worry about coupling-off just because of a 70-30 ratio. If he was inclined to couple off, he would have done so in HS or will do so at any college, regardless of the ratio. Of the 30% males, there will be a decent number who will love that they are so sought after and those are the guys who will find gfs right away. Overall, I’d be weary of a school with just 30% males for a guy who doesn’t sound like he spends most of his time now hanging out with girls. It doesn’t matter that he isn’t a jock; college guys like to hang out together and play video games, poker etc. and those activities are more fun when you have a large number of people involved; even an off campus sight-seeing trip on a random Sat. has a different vibe based on whether it’s all guys, co-ed, or mostly women. Sure there are 450 other undergrad guys there, but you have to consider that of those – the seniors aren’t necessarily going to be hanging out with the frosh guys in the dorms; a good number of the guys, esp. frosh, will love the constant female attention and will couple off right away so their lives will revolve around their gf/dating; and at such schools, often a good percentage of the guys are not hetero – not sure how your son feels about that. What is your son’s opinion overall?</p>

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<p>aj, thanks for opinion. My son has not put much thought into the subject. He has not even seen this campus yet. When looking through some college material, I pointed out that this school is 70% female, and his knee jerk reaction was that the ratio is great!</p>

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<p>why are some campuses so short on males? is it the majors they offer, location? seems kind of odd unless there is a limited number of fields of study.</p>

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<p>I think PayFor does women and women’s education an injustice. The implication above is that females don’t really learn math and the hard sciences—they just talk about them. I would be interested in hearing feedback from posters like je<em>ne</em>sai_quoi. I doubt that she feels that her daughter is in a softball educational environment like the one PayFor describes.</p>

<p>I disagree, and I believe it’s the educational system that does women an injustice with their “dumbing down” approach to all our students.</p>

<p>One example is the latest wave of K-12 math reform, vehemently opposed by most mathematicians and many parents, that had its origins in a misguided attempt by educators to address the needs of minorities and girls because they “learn differently”. This let to a new emphasis on skills like “meaningfully and purposefully interacting with peers (MAPIWP)” at the expense of actual mastery of the subject. As a result, too many girls (and boys) blissfully achieve high grades in their early math courses mainly because they work well in groups and produce excellent math journal entries. Then they hit a brick wall when they get to their first algebra class because they were never taught prerequisite skills like fluency with fractions.</p>

<p>There’s no doubt in my mind that girls are just as capable as boys in mastering the components of a rigorous curriculum, but in the interest of “social justice” our educators seem more intent on watering down standards in a way that hurts all students.</p>